I had this issue today while making my own server, i think i fixed it by telling it to not use the dev version of lemmy and the v1.17.1 version of lemmy-ui.

If you need my whole docker-compose.yml:

version: "3.3"
networks:
  # communication to web and clients
  lemmyexternalproxy:
  # communication between lemmy services
  lemmyinternal:
    driver: bridge
    internal: true

services:
  proxy:
    image: nginx:1-alpine
    networks:
      - lemmyinternal
      - lemmyexternalproxy
    ports:
      # actual and only port facing any connection from outside
      # Note, change the left number if port 1236 is already in use on your system
      # You could use port 80 if you won't use a reverse proxy
      - "82:82"
    volumes:
      - ./nginx.conf:/etc/nginx/nginx.conf:ro,Z
    restart: always
    depends_on:
      - pictrs
      - lemmy-ui

  lemmy:
    image: dessalines/lemmy:0.17.4
    # use this to build your local lemmy server image for development
    # run docker compose up --build
    #build:
    #  context: ../
    #  dockerfile: docker/Dockerfile
      # args:
      #   RUST_RELEASE_MODE: release
    # this hostname is used in nginx reverse proxy and also for lemmy ui to connect to the backend, do not change
    hostname: lemmy
    networks:
      - lemmyinternal
      - lemmyexternalproxy
    restart: always
    environment:
      - RUST_LOG="warn,lemmy_server=debug,lemmy_api=debug,lemmy_api_common=debug,lemmy_api_crud=debug,lemmy_apub=debug,lemmy_db_schema=debug,lemmy_db_views=debug,lemmy_db_views_actor=debug,lemmy_db_views_moderator=debug,lemmy_routes=debug,lemmy_utils=debug,lemmy_websocket=debug"
      - RUST_BACKTRACE=full
    volumes:
      - ./lemmy.hjson:/config/config.hjson:Z
    depends_on:
      - postgres
      - pictrs

  lemmy-ui:
    image: dessalines/lemmy-ui:0.17.4
    # use this to build your local lemmy ui image for development
    # run docker compose up --build
    # assuming lemmy-ui is cloned besides lemmy directory
    # build:
    #   context: ../../lemmy-ui
    #   dockerfile: dev.dockerfile
    networks:
      - lemmyinternal
    environment:
      # this needs to match the hostname defined in the lemmy service
      - LEMMY_UI_LEMMY_INTERNAL_HOST=lemmy:8536
      # set the outside hostname here
      - LEMMY_UI_LEMMY_EXTERNAL_HOST=localhost:1234
      - LEMMY_HTTPS=true
    depends_on:
      - lemmy
    restart: always

  pictrs:
    image: asonix/pictrs:0.4.0-beta.19
    # this needs to match the pictrs url in lemmy.hjson
    hostname: pictrs
    # we can set options to pictrs like this, here we set max. image size and forced format for conversion
    # entrypoint: /sbin/tini -- /usr/local/bin/pict-rs -p /mnt -m 4 --image-format webp
    networks:
      - lemmyinternal
    environment:
      - PICTRS_OPENTELEMETRY_URL=http://otel:4137
      - PICTRS__API_KEY=API_KEY
      - RUST_LOG=debug
      - RUST_BACKTRACE=full
      - PICTRS__MEDIA__VIDEO_CODEC=vp9
      - PICTRS__MEDIA__GIF__MAX_WIDTH=256
      - PICTRS__MEDIA__GIF__MAX_HEIGHT=256
      - PICTRS__MEDIA__GIF__MAX_AREA=65536
      - PICTRS__MEDIA__GIF__MAX_FRAME_COUNT=400
    user: 991:991
    volumes:
      - ./volumes/pictrs:/mnt:Z
    restart: always

  postgres:
    image: postgres:15-alpine
    # this needs to match the database host in lemmy.hson
    # Tune your settings via
    # https://pgtune.leopard.in.ua/#/
    # You can use this technique to add them here
    # https://stackoverflow.com/a/30850095/1655478
    hostname: postgres
    command:
      [
        "postgres",
        "-c",
        "session_preload_libraries=auto_explain",
        "-c",
        "auto_explain.log_min_duration=5ms",
        "-c",
        "auto_explain.log_analyze=true",
        "-c",
        "track_activity_query_size=1048576",
      ]
    networks:
      - lemmyinternal
      # adding the external facing network to allow direct db access for devs
      - lemmyexternalproxy
    ports:
      # use a different port so it doesnt conflict with potential postgres db running on the host
      - "5433:5432"
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_USER=lemmy
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=InsertDBPasswordHere
      - POSTGRES_DB=lemmy
    volumes:
      - ./volumes/postgres:/var/lib/postgresql/data:Z
    restart: always

I had this issue and the cause was the email server. If you’re using smtp you’ll have to make sure your vps opens port 25.

However you can also just register without an email and it should work

I experienced this too. If you’re logging in as an admin with email verification turned on, there is a bug that prevents you from logging in (since technically your email isn’t verified yet). I was able to get logged in by following the steps here (https://lemmy.click/comment/973) which included modifying the database table to mark your account as verified.

I used this script :

https://github.com/ubergeek77/Lemmy-Easy-Deploy

Once i had Docker installed it was really simple to get going.